Journeys End In Lovers' Meeting
by Rogue Callista
Summary: A Rebel Intelligence agent faces her worst fear when she meets her former best friend in a situation she never wanted to happen...


The young girl stood before her best childhood friend, tears in her eyes and a proud smile on her face. "Look at you…a full-fledged lieutenant in the Imperial Navy. Where's my friend Orien, hm?"

The man, almost a boy still, reached out to stroke her smooth, warm cheek. "Still here, whenever you need him." 

Impulsively, he drew her close, and she stiffened with surprise. "You'll rumple your uniform, Orien!" 

The young lieutenant smiled and pulled her even closer, delighted to feel her yielding to his embrace. "These are the nicest rumples to have, Salena. I don't care much about neatness, now that I have to leave you and home for good."

Salena gulped. "You don't mean it? After you ship out today, you won't…" She couldn't finish her sentence.

"Won't ever see you again, most likely." Orien finished her sentence with a lopsided smile, but there was a catch in his voice.

She stepped away. "At least when you were at the Imperial Academy, you got to come back to Tanaab sometimes! But I shall try to be brave, Orien."

"That's my Salena." He looked at her, wonder filling his eyes as he realized that she had grown into a woman during his long absences in the navy. The high price of duty, he supposed.

She drew close once again, her voice sinking into a low whisper. "Now that you're leaving for good, don't you think you could…"

"Kiss you, my dear?" A teasing light came into the young man's blue eyes. "But of course." He planted a brotherly kiss on her forehead, gently stroking her shoulder.

She looked up at him in surprise, a wounded look on her youthful face. "Oh, don't make fun of me, Orien! Couldn't you at least…I mean…" Her eyes dropped to the floor tiles in disappointment. 

The young man smiled and shook his head. "No, Salena, I couldn't. It wouldn't be fair, when you know I don't feel that way about you. Not when I'm leaving you so soon." He kissed her once more on the cheek. "So I shall leave you with that, my dear, and I hope that you will always remember your old friend Orien, even if you never see him again."

Impulsively, Salena flung her arms around her friend's neck, knocking his lieutenant's cap askew so that it hung on his dark head at a rakish angle. "I would never forget you! And I know I'll see you again, I know it!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Five years later, Salena Irikaan stood on the bridge of the Mon Calamari ship _Home One_ and watched as the Battle of Endor raged about her. She turned to her partner Gorn and grinned broadly. "I may be just an Intell agent, but I think the odds are turning in our favor."

The typical Durosian expression on Gorn's face turned even more mournful. "Sure, Salena, whatever you say. You're just happy that you're here on a capital ship and not down on the planet pounding Imp bunkers."

Salena's face soured. "Hey, I did my job. I helped the Bothans get that information about the second Death Star, and I brought it to the people that count. Thanks to yours truly, those fighter jocks should be making scrap of that monstrosity right about…now."

And at that very moment, as Gorn watched in dumbfounded amazement, the Death Star, Mark II bloomed into a terrifyingly beautiful ball of reactor-driven fire.

Salena laughed aloud as the Imp ships harrying _Home One_ ran for cover and the bridge crew cheered and whooped. "What did I tell you, Gorn?" she remarked dryly as she thumped her Duros partner on the shoulder. "Irikaan gets 'em every time." Still, she couldn't help thinking…all those Imp ships they'd shot out today…

__

I would never forget you! I'll see you again someday!

Impulsive words cried out in a young girl's anguish at the leaving of a childhood friend. Not a Rebel mourning the departure of an Imperial.

__

I would never forget you! Never, Orien!

Still, the fear had never left her in five years with the Rebellion. The fear that she would open the wreckage of a ship to find his mangled body. The fear that a shot from behind a door would take him down and she would find her first love with a hole through his chest from her blaster. _Her_ blaster.

__

This is the worst fate, to be the enemy of my friend…

Now it was Gorn's turn to give her a good-natured punch. "Spacing out, Irikaan? You're looking out that viewport like you expect your best friend to pop outta the vacuum."

Salena winced. "In a way, I suppose I am." She purposely avoided the Duros's questioning stare. "Come on, let's go get a mug of lum and celebrate this. It's too good of an opportunity to miss."

* * * * * * * *

Some hours later, Salena was dozing against a tree as the seemingly tireless Ewoks danced on around her. She and her partner had had their celebratory lum with a bunch of small furry sentients instead of with the Mon Cal crew of the Home One.

Gorn and a few others had commandeered a shuttle so the Intell folks on _Home One_ could celebrate on the ground with the rest of the mission crew. She had to admit, it was real nice. The Ewoks could fight as well as they could party, from the stories Princess Leia'd told.

Yawning, she stretched her sore limbs. The sun was rising on the sanctuary moon of Endor, and the dawn colors somehow seemed to sanctify this place, which had so recently been the scene of a bloody battle. Salena looked around her at the napping pilots and passed-out troopers. Even her Intell buddies had quieted, swapping stories with an A-wing squad and a group of adolescent Ewoks. She decided that nobody would notice if she went to take a short walk. Dawn in the forest was quiet, and she needed to sort out her thoughts.

Her usually sharp nerves dulled by lum and lack of sleep, Salena hardly noticed that she was wandering deeper and deeper into the Endoran forest. The evergreen glades were so peaceful, the towering trees so elegant. She hadn't seen anything so lovely since she'd left Tanaab. Her bucolic, serene homeworld had been mostly farms, but it had a few deciduous forests, and Salena had always enjoyed hiking through the wooded glades. However pleasant those memories were, the truth was that she could probably never return to the world of her birth. Unless Tanaab decided to join the Alliance, going there would be too dangerous now that she was a known Rebel and her name was on wanted lists all over the galaxy.

The rustle of a nearby bush interrupted her thoughts. Instantly alert, she drew her blaster as she glimpsed a bit of gray-hued cloth in the hedge. "Halt! Drop your weapons and come out into the open!" she cried nervously. There was no answer for several moments, and Salena began to feel foolish. "I have a blaster and I'm ready to use it…"

Slowly, slowly, a gray-capped head began to emerge. Someone, an Imperial someone, was most definitely behind that bush. As the figure, clad in a Captain's uniform, came out into the open glade where Salena stood, she slowly realized that the face was familiar to her. Older, more lined, and the youthful glow of the eyes had been replaced by a hard carelessness…but it was him. She spoke his name, almost to herself, as if to remind herself that he existed. "Orien Danuel." 

The blue eyes under the gray billed cap glittered, and the captain tried to maintain his dignity, even as he stood there covered in dirt, blood, and leaves. "You have my name, Rebel, though not my proper rank of Captain. What else would you have of me?"

Salena gaped in shock. "You mean that you don't recognize me at all? Have five years with the Alliance aged me that much? Orien!" The man flinched, and she saw the slow light of recognition blooming in his eyes. "I'm Salena, Salena Irikaan. You've forgotten…" 

The Imperial struggled to keep his face emotionless. "I am sorry that I have forgotten. Perhaps we were acquaintances in childhood, but duty's demands have pressed such trifles from my mind." He gave her a sardonic look, and there was a trace of cool humor in the smile that played across his lips. "I suppose you mean to take me prisoner and bring me back to what passes for command in the Rebel forces."

Salena narrowed her eyes and kept her blaster trained on Orien. "You recognize me. Don't lie, you scum!" she spat, tears of anger and grief starting to her eyes. "No matter how much you try to deny it, you do know me. And I knew you, once."

There was something almost sad in Captain Danuel's face. "That was a long time ago. I am not the Orien you once knew, Salena."

The use of her personal name melted a little of the ice winding its way through Salena's heart. "At least you're calling me by my name instead of 'Rebel', Orien. Tell me, how did you end up here in this wilderness? You ought to be up there," she gestured at the sky, "on one of those big ships, instead of here in the dirt."

"Our plans change, Salena, just as we do," Orien replied, his face masklike once more. "I was in charge of the bunker controlling the shield that protected the Death Star. I had gone outside to sweep for Rebel incendiaries…and the shield unit was promptly blown up. I have been out here the whole night, looking for the reinforcements promised me, and trying to avoid the Rebels. I succeeded until you found me."

Salena snorted, taking a kind of sick pleasure from the news she was about to deliver. "There aren't any more Imps onplanet, Orien. They're all dead or hightailing it through hyperspace. Sorry to tell you this, _pal_, but you lost the battle. The Alliance has won."

The captain tried to shoot daggers at his captor with his eyes. "You lie. And not only are you a liar, you have the audacity to refer to me using familiar terms. You are most despicable."

Salena laughed shakily, a strange feeling of power rushing through her veins. "I'll call you Jabba the Hutt if I damn well please, Orien! I'm the one with the blaster here. You're not in a position to make demands. And I've never told you an untruth in my life. Just you try to find a single Imperial on this planet and you'll see how right I am!"

Orien glared coldly back at her, but there was something in his eyes that reminded Salena of a wild teopari in a snare—a look of fury and fear strangely intermingled. "Decide what to do already, _Rebel_! I grow tired of you toying with me. Shoot me now or bring me back to your insurrectionist friends." He suddenly lowered his glance and sighed heavily. "It hardly makes a difference to me."

Oddly moved by his seeming despondency, Salena spoke more softly this time. "Does it, Orien? You should want to live. The Orien I knew would have wanted to live, would have wanted to see his children, to own the land he dreamed of."  
"That man has already died." The faded blue eyes held a look of deep sorrow.

"What killed him?" Salena asked, half to herself. "Imperial Navy wasn't what you expected, was it? They broke you down and remolded you in their image, killed your dream…but there's still a little good left in you, Orien." She smiled, remembering her old friend as he had been. "You had so much good in you when I knew you, they couldn't possibly have squeezed it all out."

Orien smiled back, but his expression was bitter and not nostalgic. "Oh, Salena, always the idealist. No wonder you joined the Rebellion. The Navy soon teaches you that there's no place for altruism in this galaxy. Why not just kill me and be done with it?"

Salena shook her head. "Because I'm not like that, Orien. I'm just not like that. I can't kill someone I once loved in cold blood just because we ended up on opposite sides of a war. Just because he's changed almost beyond recgonition."

"I'll die in the woods anyway, Salena, even if you do let me go." There was anguish in Orien's voice. "Just kill me. It would be a mercy. You'd blot out my dishonor."

"And what dishonor is there in surviving?" Salena's heart ached for the man she'd loved. "I'll give you a survival pak. Food is easy to find on this planet. You could make the farm you've always dreamed of. You could have peace."

"And what is land of my own with no one to share it with?" Now she could read the deep loneliness in his eyes.

"Traders will come to this planet. You could hitch a ride off if you wished—I'll leave my comlink with you. You can go anywhere, Orien. There's going to be peace in this galaxy, and you'll be free to go where you wish."

Orien sighed heavily. "Then I'll go into the woods, Salena. I'll go, and make something of the pieces of the life I've left." He glanced at her, a look which took in her entire person. "Might I not touch hands with the captor who's given me my life?"

"No, Orien, for that would bring up too many memories. We can't go back." Salena shook her head, long, dark curls brushing her cheek. "Just go. I won't shoot you in the back. You can trust me."

She handed him her survival pack and comlink and watched him leave. Wordlessly, he walked deeper and deeper into the woods, straight-backed, still proud as ever. When she was sure he was gone, Salena turned back towards the Ewok village, tears filling her eyes.

There was pain, yes, in letting Orien go…but she had finally come to terms with her choice. She had finally looked in the face of her friend the enemy…and she had been blessed with the opportunity to let him walk free. Glancing at the sky framed by towering evergreens, Salena thanked whatever gods there were that she and Orien had found a chance for mercy, in the midst of war.


End file.
